In the Forest of Light and Dark (7 page)

     “It’s nothing,” she said, looking at me with perturbed eyes while continuing to insist that we head back up to the kitchen. Her urgency shown to me  by her now less than gentle nudges.
     “No, really, Mama. What is it?” I demanded, as I started to feel a little bitter at her for treating me like a child who couldn’t handle the truth about her grandmother. I thought it was ridiculous, her keeping secrets from me like this. I had a right to know about my grandmother, and about our family’s history in this village, didn’t I?
     “It’s nothing. Really, honey, it isn’t anything.” my mama, then said doing her best to avoid the question as she continued to lead me back to the top of the stairs while I stubbornly fought her the whole way. “It’s just some left over stuff that your grandmother was into that was apparently never cleaned up. I told you about how she was a herbalist and a naturalist, and into all kinds of weird ritualistic medicine.”
     “Yeah, right,” I huffed as we finally had made our way to the top of the stairs. My mama staying close behind me so I couldn’t slip past her to go back into the basement.
   
That stuff looked like Devil worshiping shit to me.
I thought as I’d reached the confines of the kitchen, but I dared not say that to my mama. But, at that moment I had made a mental note to sneak back downstairs the first chance I got so I could really check it out. Maybe even take a few pictures of it so I could try to look it up on the internet. But unfortunately, later on that evening when I had come back from taking a bicycle ride with mama into the village, I had snuck back downstairs to see it again but it was gone. I had suspected that my mama had sent my step daddy to clean it up while we were out.
    After coming up from the basement my mama suggested that we should go grab the rest of our belongings from the trailer in an effort to change the subject. We were in the middle of doing just that when my Step Daddy Cade came rolling back up the driveway in the Truckster. Its breaks squeaking loudly like nails on a chalk board announcing his arrival as the car came to a stop just a few feet from us and the trailer. Its engine continuing to wheeze and clank for a comically long time after my step daddy had turned off the ignition. It had reminded me of one of those pooped out cartoon cars in an old Disney skit.
     “Missed the driveway twice on my way back,” he said to us with a stupid grin on his face as he stuck his head half-way out the window. “Got some chicken for tonight and some corn and they had burgers on sale, so I picked up some of those for tomorrow.”
     “That’s great, honey.” My mama said to him before heading back into the trailer to gather up more stuff. “Cera and I are going to check the garage and shed for some bikes so we can take a ride into the village. If, we don’t find any, can you bring up the ones we saw in the basement?” she asked and as she said all this to him her voice had trailed off the further she went into the trailer.
     “Yeah, I suppose.” Step Daddy Cade replied back to her while shrugging his shoulders and struggling to carry four bags full of groceries into the house.
     As my mama finished gathering things up from the trailer I had walked over to the east end of the house where I found a door on the side of the garage that had been left unlocked, which I then used to gain entry.
     Once inside, I searched for a button on the wall next to the door that would engage the automatic opener. After finding and pushing it, a single light blinked on and then a needing to be badly greased motor came lumbering to life with a series of small squeaks and clangs as it brought up the massive garage door.
     Sunlight instantly began to pour into the garage illuminating the sleek, jet-black Cadillac that sat abandoned in the center of the room. Its smooth curves and polished rims made it look like a caged animal just waiting for someone to get behind its wheel and take off down the highway. And, I’m pretty sure I knew just
who
that someone will be too. It surely wasn’t as fast as the Trans Am, but by the look of it, I bet it could have hauled ass.
     After checking out the car I looked around and saw that the rear wall of the garage seemed lined with cabinets. As I began digging through them, I found that they were mostly filled with old cans of paint and slightly rusted up hand tools that I had assumed must have belonged to my grandfather. There was also some electrical cords, a couple of garden hoses, and a big-ass bag of fertilizer along with an electric hedge shear that hung on the wall by a hook, but no bicycles.
     I had better luck in the shed though, where I found a couple of mountain bikes that were a lot newer than the two in the basement. I wasn’t sure to whom they had belonged to, but then I thought,
Maybe they were my grandmother’s? Judging from the pictures I had seen in the house of her, she wasn’t all that old. Maybe, she had an affliction for tearing up the trails that surely mapped these woods just like Grandma Singer would have done if she lived here.
     I began pulling the bikes out from the shed and it wasn’t long before I started hearing the faint sounds of meowing coming from somewhere near the back of the structure. Curious about what had made the sound—as if it could have been anything other than a cat—I began moving the dusty, tattered boxes filled with lawn ornaments and yard equipment out of my way so I could get closer to the area from where I thought I heard the sound emanating.
     As I dove deeper into the shed objects that were hanging from the walls and rafters began to fall on me. Which then caused me to stub my toe on a ladder that been leaning up against the far wall which then caused me to swear out in pain.
     But it was just before I’d reached the back of the shed, when suddenly a white and orange cat shot-out passed me, weaving in and out of the tangles of debris and going right through my legs.
     The cat had startled me something awful, and when I turned around to see where it had gone,
to my surprise
it was still there, right behind me now just sitting on the lawn. It was staring at me intensely with its hazel eyes, and to me it was like looking at a ghost.
    Just then, for a reason unbeknownst to me, I thought of the little boy from down the street. The one who’d stuck his tongue out at me. How deeply he had stared at me when my family and I drove past him.
   
 
“I see you’ve made a friend.” a voice said from behind me and I turned around to see that it was my mama walking up from the house.
   
 
“Yeah, I guess so.” I answered.
   
 
Cautiously, I approached the cat not wanting to scare it off
or give it any reason to bite me for that matter. As I advanced it let out a brief meow as I reached out my hand to it, but other than that it didn’t show any other outward signs that it felt threatened by either me or my mama.
   
 
“Can we keep it?” I asked.
   
 
“We’ll see.” Mama said, seeming to actually ponder the question. “You know your step daddy hates cats though.”
   
 
“My step daddy hates everything.” I pouted back at her.
   
 
“That’s true.” she agreed, letting a little smile slip out. “But for now let’s go back to the house and see if we can wrangle up some food for this little guy… or gal, or
whatever it is, it’s probably hungry.”
   
 
“I think it’s a boy.” I said as I got down on my hands and knees trying to peak at the cat’s underbelly.
   
 
My mama, then hurried ahead as I slowly walked back up to the house while making a few little clicks with my tongue and speaking softly to the cat in a childlike voice trying to encourage it to follow me. It had worked, and the cat now circled itself back and forth on the deck while I ducked into the kitchen and looked for some food for it. But unfortunately by the time I had found something—a can of tuna fish that was one of several left in a cabinet above the stove—and had gotten back outside the cat had disappeared.
   
 
“Where did he go?” my mama asked after having noticed me calling for him with, “Here boy.” all while searching the entire area surrounding the deck.
   
 
“I don’t know. He was right here.” I said anxiously. “I just slipped into the house for a moment to grab this can of tuna, and when I came back out he was gone.”
   
 
“Well, why don’t you just go ahead and leave that here on the deck.” My mama suggested. “I’m sure he’ll come back when he smells the food.”
   
 
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” I agreed while letting out a sigh filled heavily with disappointment.
   
 
I did as my mama had put forth and I left the tuna for the disappearing cat on the deck hidden under a couple of fern leaves that had grown large enough to come up through the deck’s railings. My mama and I then hopped on the bikes that I’d found in the shed and we took off down the street headed for the village.
     At the end of the street we turned left down Redmond Avenue, passing the high school for the second time that day before making our way up to Fairings Boulevard, which was the main drag-way through the center of the village.
     Our first stop was at a little candy shop called
the sugar shack
where I got some fruit jellies and my mama picked up several chocolate-covered strawberries for herself. As we left the store, she had mentioned to me that when she was a kid that same store had been an insurance office. I thought about what she’d said fleetingly for a second and even tried to imagine what the store would’ve looked like filled with computers and filing cabinets and people wearing business suits. But, I let it go thinking that the place definitely worked better as
the sugar shack.
   
 
We then hopped back on our bikes and took the short ride over to
Maybelle’s Diner
which overlooked the village square. Once inside, a pretty waitress not much older than me walked up to us in her pink and white striped uniform, straight out of the 1950’s and handed us a couple of menus while telling us her name and asking what we’d like to drink. I had asked for a sweet tea, and my mama got a diet Coke (Pepsi). Then, the waitress walked off leaving us there to study our menus even though I had already known just what it was I wanted to have, chicken wings
.
I had always heard my whole life that if you should ever find yourself up near the Buffalo area, you had to try the wings.
So, I reckoned Mt. Harrison was about as close to Buffalo as I was going to get for a while so I should probably give them a shot.
     My mama had settled on a roast beef sandwich and we both placed our orders with the little waitress when she came back to our table with our drinks.
   
 
As we waited for our food, I took to peering out the diner’s large storefront window that we seated ourselves next to and I people watched as the citizens of Mt. Harrison went on about their daily lives.
     I saw a fat man wearing a KISS T-shirt that barely covered the bottom half of his belly. He was walking two collies on extended leashes. I then saw a new mother pushing her blonde-haired baby girl in a stroller. It was somewhat amusing to watch as the child would repeatedly take the pacifier from her mouth throwing it to the ground. She would then scream over its absence much to the dismay and irritation of her mama who then had to pull out a box of disinfecting wipes from her purse to clean it off so she could give it back to the child who would only throw it away again.
     In the square was an old man, nodding off on a park bench. He wore a brown fedora that his disheveled, gray hair stuck out from, and he had a faded tattoo on his right forearm that showed itself off just below the sleeve of his light-blue, button-down shirt.
   
 
“So what do you think of this place so far, Cera?” my mama asked snapping me out of my trance.
   
 
“Huh,” I said having noticed she’d asked me a question, but not having paid any attention as to what the question was.
   
 
“I asked you, what do you think of Mt. Harrison so far?”
   
 
“Oh, it’s nice.” I admitted. “It seems a lot cleaner than Saraland, but I thought it would be colder up here.”
   
 
“
Wait!”
she then said to me with a somewhat lighthearted chuckle to her voice. “This is only the first week of August. Wait until February rolls around. You’ll be wishing you were back in Saraland.”
   
 
“It doesn’t really get that cold up here, does it?” I asked, thinking that she was full-of-you-know-what and just messing with me. She then just gave me a smirk that implied once again. “
Wait,”
     It was just then that our waitress had come back to our table with our food, And I couldn’t wait to dig into my wings. I had the first one down even before my mama had finished salting her fries.
     Everything was going great, and we were about half-way through our meal when… I hadn’t noticed it at the time, but a wiry, older-looking woman wearing a gumshoe style overcoat had approached the large storefront window that our booth faced and she began staring at us all bug-eyed.
  
Who the hell is this… And why would anyone be dressed like that in August?